4.2 Million Room Nights in Accor Hotels Booked Online

19th Sep 2003

During the first eight months of the year, 4.2 million room nights in Accor hotels were booked online, the equivalent of 170 hotels a day.

At August 31, online bookings in Accor hotels were up 60%, with a 65% increase for Accor sites in Europe. Room nights reserved on the Accor hotel websites (the accorhotels.com portal, as well as the sofitel.com, novotel.com, mercure.com, suite-hotel.com, ibishotel.com, etaphotel.com, hotelformule1.com, motel6.com and redroof.com sites) accounted for nearly 85% of total online bookings, compared with 15% for online distributors.

The percentage of Accor revenues from Internet bookings has steadily increased. For full-year 2003, Accor forecasts Internet business volume of nearly EUR 300 million, or around 5.6% of lodging revenue, compared with EUR 202 million and 3.6% in 2002. The Economy segment accounts for 63% of online bookings, which generate 6% of aggregate Ibis, Etap Hotel and Formule 1 revenues in Europe and 10% of Red Roof Inns and Motel 6 revenues in the United States.

Most visitors to the different websites are retail customers who generally choose an Accor hotel for leisure travel. In Europe, 42% of visitors to Group sites enter through the accorhotels.com portal, which attests to its growing reputation, while 58% go directly to the site of their preferred brand.

In early summer, the pace of online bookings further accelerated with one room reserved nearly every four seconds via Accor websites.

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A major radio and Internet advertising campaign, launched in late June in France and Germany to promote the Accor hotels Smiley Prices, helped to increase the number of visitors to accorhotels.com.